After seeing artistic responses in Israel to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, Danielle R’bibo, a graduate student at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, decided that there should be a gallery exhibit in New York City exploring the trauma of the terror attack in southern Israel.
The freelance art curator in New York contacted Dede Bandaid and Nitzan Mintz, who created the “kidnapped” poster campaign, messaged other artists on social media and the exhibit—her first curated gallery show—came together.
“I just felt like there was something there and something to be shown,” R’bibo, who per her LinkedIn profile worked in marketing and consulting before pursuing an art career, told JNS. “Obviously, the war in Israel is getting so political, but there’s a whole side of it—of the people there that are recovering and reflecting on what happened.”
R’bibo’s show, on view until Sept. 26 at David Benrimon Fine Art just southeast of Central Park in midtown Manhattan, is titled “Resilience and Reflection: An Artistic Response to Oct. 7.”
“Art allows us to communicate the inexpressible, to process pain, and to find hope amid sorrow,” R’bibo stated in a release. “The artists in this exhibition are deeply moved by the opportunity to share their work in America. Through their art, they aim to honor the memories of those lost, bringing a human face to the war.”
The curator told JNS that the exhibit—which includes paintings, poems, sculptures, videos and mixed-media works—is apolitical and focuses on reflection and survival.
The Tel Aviv sculptor Yarin Didi is one of the artists represented in the show. His work “Cut Apart” combines a human figure and a building, both of which are fragmented and abstracted.
“Days unending, where the code red alarm echoes ceaselessly. Days where safety is a distant memory, and the future, even the present, feels shrouded in uncertainty,” a description of the work states. “Scars, both seen and unseen, destined to remain, perhaps never to heal. The relentless conflict carves into us, leaving humanity cut and scarred.”
“The small house with the red roof stands as a testament to the horrors around Gaza on that fateful Oct. 7,” per the description. “The earth beneath the figure, crafted from olive wood, symbolizes peace with its olive branch. The entire composition—from the figure to the ground and the house—captures emotions too heavy for most to bear or speak of.”
Didi told JNS that another work of his in the show—titled “Double Sided” and made of cypress wood—comments on the media and propaganda, and on whether Israelis should approach their Palestinian neighbors with weapons or gifts.
The figure holds a bouquet in the front and a blade behind its back. “Should we bring flowers for peace, or a knife for self-defense?” he said.
Artists can tell different kinds of stories than journalists can, according to Didi. That’s especially true when it comes to describing emotions, he believes.
“Artists had an artistic transformation since Oct. 7, because the media doesn’t speak about the feelings that artists are able to express through colors or sculpture,” he said. “The media speaks about what they want to speak about. The artists speak about the feelings of survivors and hostages.”
Instrument of transformation
Creating art not only changes the artist’s medium but also transforms the person creating the work, hopefully in this case by healing internal trauma, according to Ori Soltes, a historian, author, Georgetown University professor and former director of the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum.
“The artist transforms the material at his or her disposal. Words become poems, pigment becomes paintings, notes become musical scores, stone becomes statuary,” Soltes told JNS. “The artist is transformed as well.”
“Nowhere does that principle express itself more intensely than in the use of art as a response to trauma,” he added. “Art becomes an instrument of transforming the artist.”
Ava Avidar-Hamburger, an art therapist in New Jersey, told JNS that art can help people express feelings that are otherwise too hard to discuss or even emotions of which they are unaware. Making art can help those who are struggling with trauma in particular, by giving them a language that transcends words, she added.
Israelis have come together to process their “communal trauma,” according to Avidar-Hamburger.
“When you’re not alone in your trauma, and you’re not alone in your experience, there’s a sense of camaraderie and healing together,” she said.
Making art can give those who feel helpless a sense of agency.
“When you feel like everything’s out of control around you, you can use the medium to take control, create and make something positive,” Avidar-Hamburger said.
